Monday, December 18, 2017
579 - Go Ahead and Say It, Part 3
Spirituality Column #579
December 19, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Go Ahead and Say It,
Part 3
By Bob Walters
My very favorite Christmas curmudgeon is not the fabled
“Grinch” of cartoons and movies but my very real-life friend and Christian
mentor Dr. George Bebawi.
Now there is a guy – a pastor, teacher, Bible
translator, and a man deeply blessed with many spiritual gifts of intellect,
experience, and communication – who doesn’t like modern Christmas. It is enlightening to find out why.
Let’s
start, for our purposes, with all the Christians who embrace the infinite love
of Christ, who participate in the divinely and humanely giving spirit of the
season, and who embody the family-strengthening sentimentality of home and
church traditions. They annually
encounter the inexplicable, ineffable peace of this holy season marking the
arrival of the baby Jesus, give thanks to God for His infinite Love, and will
renew their striving to maintain an attitude of goodwill toward all of humanity
all year long.
George
certainly loves all these people too; heck I’m one of them and so are a whole,
whole lot of my friends, his friends, your friends … a lot of all of our
friends. But George also very keenly
notes the secular, symbolic, stultifying intrusion of snowmen, sleigh rides,
reindeer, blow-up lawn ornaments, shopping delirium, and spiritual dysfunction
into what properly should be, could be, ought
to be, a most sober, reverent, reflective, and yes joyous commemoration of
God’s greatest gift to mankind: Jesus.
Cultural Christmas
winds blow us too easily off the Godly, serious course of Christ and we instead
land on the far shore of a massive, man-made party full of emotion and bereft of
theology. The “true meaning of Christmas”
amounts to far more than “a baby in a manger and presents under the tree” yet
goes undigested in the swirl of busy commercialism and then out the door with
the used gift-wrap. We should – but we
don’t – take absolute ownership all the
time of the Jesus gift we are given.
If we read
Luke 2 for the warm-fuzzy manger scene (shepherds, angels, glory, etc.) but
have not absolutely understood the eternal, hard-target impact of John 1:14 – “and the Word became flesh” – we miss the
point. The Incarnation of Christ – the
light of hope for all mankind manifested in Jesus – burns brighter than any
holiday display.
The past
couple weeks I’ve poked a bit of fun at Catholic priest Desmond O’Donnell of
Northern Ireland, who recently said, “Don’t say Christmas.” I am a career public relations guy and
therefore a champion of getting the names right so yes, by all means, let’s say
“Christmas.” But Father O’Donnell, like
George, has a point about not saying “Christmas” because so many people miss the
holy point, which is Jesus Christ.
George, a
world-renowned scholar of church history, presented an academic paper in
Toronto a couple weeks ago on the brief but masterful fourth-century Christian
commentary, “On the Incarnation” by
St. Athanasius of Alexandria who describes the enormity of God’s gift without a
hint of celebrating Christmas. George
gets it.
Jesus is about relationship and
morality; about love, salvation, and truth.
He restores us to God for good and for all eternity. So if that is what your season’s greetings
intend, then by all means go ahead and say it: “Merry Christmas!”
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) will email George’s paper to you upon request.
0 comments:
Post a Comment